Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 10, 2026
07:33
Noninvasive, High-throughput Determination of Sleep Duration in Rodents
Published on: April 18, 2018
8.3K
COMPASS: Continuous Open Mouse Phenotyping of Activity and Sleep Status
Laurence A Brown1, Sibah Hasan1, Russell G Foster1
1Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi), Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Wellcome Open Research
|December 16, 2016
Summary
Researchers developed COMPASS, a non-invasive system using motion sensors to measure mouse activity and sleep. This cost-effective method accurately tracks circadian rhythms and sleep patterns, offering a simpler alternative to traditional techniques.
Area of Science:
- Animal behavior research
- Physiology and behavior
- Biomedical engineering
Background:
- Disrupted activity and rest rhythms are common in diseases and indicate health.
- Measuring these rhythms typically requires specialized equipment and expertise, limiting widespread use.
- Current methods for rodent activity (running wheels) and sleep (EEG) are often invasive or complex.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a simple, non-invasive system for measuring home cage activity and sleep status in mice.
- To provide a cost-effective and user-friendly alternative to existing methods.
- To enable simultaneous phenotyping of circadian rhythms and sleep.
Main Methods:
- Utilized passive infrared (PIR) motion sensors in a home cage setup.
- Developed an open-source system named COMPASS (Continuous Open Mouse Phenotyping of Activity and Sleep Status).
- Calibrated the system to identify extended immobility (>40 seconds) as a proxy for sleep.
Main Results:
- The system accurately measures circadian activity parameters.
- Extended immobility (>40 seconds) reliably indicates sleep, correlating highly with EEG-defined sleep (r >0.95).
- The system generates small data files, facilitating easy data sharing and longitudinal studies.
Conclusions:
- Behaviorally-defined sleep via motion sensors offers a valuable, non-invasive method for phenotyping circadian rhythms and sleep.
- COMPASS provides a cheap, effective, and real-time alternative to video analysis for activity and sleep studies.
- This approach is particularly useful for phenotyping screens and for non-specialists studying activity and rest cycles.
